Janesville Mall- (Janesville, WI)

The Janesville Mall is the first mall you run into along Interstate 90 when entering Wisconsin in the city of Janesville. The malls current anchor stores are Sears, Boston Store, and Kohl's.

The mall opened in September 1973, but planned for the enclosed mall went underway in November 1970 with the groundbreaking set for spring 1971. Original stores Welles, Montgomery Ward and Charles V. Weise, owned by Bergner's and was 160,000 square feet of retail space.

In early 1973, the company that owned Welles went bankrupt and terminated its plans to open the mall store. They considered Sears, but at the time, already had a store downtown and at the Beloit Plaza. JCPenney was also at the Beloit Plaza, but took on the malls offer and opened where Welles was planned.

In 1985, Illinois based Bergners bought Charles V. Weise and became Bergner-Weise, then Bergner's. Montgomery Ward closed in the 1980s and was replaced with a Kohl's Food Store. Bergners at Beloit Center closed in 1991 because of bankruptcy and the Janesville Mall location was rebranded at Boston Store.

Sears left the Beloit Plaza in 1996 and opened a new store at the mall in 1997. In 1998, Chuck E. Cheese opened in the former movie theater and Kohl's expanded there store.

In January 2014, the JCPenney store went into liquidation as 32 other stores did by the company.

Dick's sporting goods is proposed to take over the former JCPenney location.

Here are pictures of the mall from January 2014:

Now closed

If anyone has any questions about the mall, feel free to post below.

Thank you for reading.